I can't speak for everyone but I know most of us had a pretty good weekend of riding considering we haven't had wind in almost a month. Saturday delivered a light breeze that several riders took advantage of. ACE Delegarza was out with that new radar evading Naish kite. The name escapes me at the moment. Howizard was instructing?! I guess his minions were down for the count or out of town. The wind picked up late Saturday afternoon at Wildcat and T-Todd, Jonathon, J.J and a few others rode well past sundown. I was having a blast on my 12m. I felt reborn, I shed a tear afterwards. There was rumblings of doing a midnight bay crossing since the wind was supposed to blow long into the night and peak at 1 am. Conservative minds prevailed unfortunately so we will have to save that adventure for another day......something silly about the absence of any moonlight and the word "Dangerous" was thrown around a lot - whatever that means. Local kiteboarding super star Rocky Chatwell has returned home after 6 long months and 9 hard fought battles against the best kiteboarders in the world, the last of which was in Chile amongst the seals. He finished 9th overall on the PKRA Tour and was awarded "Rookie of the Year". Totally unbelievable considering this is his 1st year on the tour. Major props to our local ACE. He is a bit under the weather as of late which is unfortunate because we all want to see how his sick riding skills have improved since the summer. Anyway he is happy to be back home for some much needed down time and we are all very proud of him. Way-to-go ACE. Thanks to everyone who has supported him in his quest for world domination. He will be hitting the tour hard again next year with a whole new bag of tricks.
Sunday's wind blew early so I put the word out that we were going to do a downwinder at the beach. The Mcginnis Team showed up along with John Cole, J.J and I. Danish and Duffy showed up later in the day. We rode aaaallll day at JP Luby and did two great down-winders. One was half way to Port A. Major props go out to Mark, Sean and Liam McGinnis and Rookair J.J. all of whom conquered the waves and completed there first downwinder. Protege Sean busted out the surfboard for the second downwinder and was thrashing waves in every direction. Rookair Liam rode like a champ too. When you are 4 feet tall, 4 foot waves are "head high". The two car deal is kind of a pain though so I think next time we should just go all the way to Port A and share a cab back - that is if we can find one that will take us. Maybe we can just pay some dude with a pickup $30 for a ride back with all our gear.
When I got back to Portland I dropped by Wildcat to see who was out. Rookair Josh was all fired up and attempting 360 air transitions. I did not get the full report on his success rate. Keep crashing dude, you will get it. I know there were others out this weekend too but I can't recall who and where exactly. The unimportant aspects of life have been quite demanding as of late so my mind isn't totally clear. This thing called work really takes up a lot of my time. I wish I new that before I got a college degree and all that. They want you to be there like 5 days a week for 8 hours, and sometimes more! Totally crazy. We must rise and revolt.
Pump it and Chunk it. Photo of Rocky killing it in the Canary Islands.
Sunday's wind blew early so I put the word out that we were going to do a downwinder at the beach. The Mcginnis Team showed up along with John Cole, J.J and I. Danish and Duffy showed up later in the day. We rode aaaallll day at JP Luby and did two great down-winders. One was half way to Port A. Major props go out to Mark, Sean and Liam McGinnis and Rookair J.J. all of whom conquered the waves and completed there first downwinder. Protege Sean busted out the surfboard for the second downwinder and was thrashing waves in every direction. Rookair Liam rode like a champ too. When you are 4 feet tall, 4 foot waves are "head high". The two car deal is kind of a pain though so I think next time we should just go all the way to Port A and share a cab back - that is if we can find one that will take us. Maybe we can just pay some dude with a pickup $30 for a ride back with all our gear.
When I got back to Portland I dropped by Wildcat to see who was out. Rookair Josh was all fired up and attempting 360 air transitions. I did not get the full report on his success rate. Keep crashing dude, you will get it. I know there were others out this weekend too but I can't recall who and where exactly. The unimportant aspects of life have been quite demanding as of late so my mind isn't totally clear. This thing called work really takes up a lot of my time. I wish I new that before I got a college degree and all that. They want you to be there like 5 days a week for 8 hours, and sometimes more! Totally crazy. We must rise and revolt.
Pump it and Chunk it. Photo of Rocky killing it in the Canary Islands.
